Waynesday

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What do you reckon then? Will Rooney be passed fit to play some part in the WC or will Alex Ferguson stick his oar in and persuade him not to get involved?

Watching the footage of the training session yesterday, did anyone else notice an instance where he was kicking dead balls with his right foot and he recoiled from one of them, pulling his right foot back as if he'd felt some pain? Or was that just me?

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It simple, either don't take him and replace him with Defoe, or take him and replace JJ with Defoe.

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But which do you think will happen man, daft lad?

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He'll go I reckon, but we won't see him in the Group games. Personally, it's the lack of quality cover up front that has me worried. Lack of goals if Owen gets injured (which for some strange reason I reckon he will) will make the decision to take a crocked Rooney a piss poor one I'm afraid.

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I reckon he'll go and we might see him get on towards the end of the second round game against (hopefully) Poland. I can also see Owen getting injured, but I think that's just pessimism because he plays for us.

Did nobody else see that footage on the news of him pull his foot back after he'd struck the ball then?

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I reckon he'll go and we might see him get on towards the end of the second round game against (hopefully) Poland. I can also see Owen getting injured, but I think that's just pessimism because he plays for us.

Did nobody else see that footage on the news of him pull his foot back after he'd struck the ball then?

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Nope

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I reckon he'll go and we might see him get on towards the end of the second round game against (hopefully) Poland. I can also see Owen getting injured, but I think that's just pessimism because he plays for us.

Did nobody else see that footage on the news of him pull his foot back after he'd struck the ball then?

145768[/snapback]

Nope

145953[/snapback]

Well it's out there, so all that means is you missed it, not that it didn't happen.

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SOMETIMES we see only what we want to see. We believe only what we want to believe.

We see Wayne Rooney on a pristine training pitch on a German mountainside, laughing and joking as he plays a noncontact game of handball with the rest of the England squad.

We see him volleying a ball with venom, even if it is with his left foot. We see him dashing in and out of slalom poles.

We see him hitting measured passes with his right foot. We see him doing shuttle runs and telling reporters later: "I feel fine."

We see him resting afterwards with David Beckham and Ashley Cole, the three of them lolling on the touchline, chewing the fat like everything's just dandy.

We believe Rooney's ready. We believe that as well as being a genius footballer, this kid is actually about to defy medical science, too.

We believe he is making the kind of miracle recovery we had hardly dared to imagine, even in our wildest dreams.

We believe there is nothing that he is not capable of. He doesn't play by the normal rules even when it comes to returning from injury. We believe he is some kind of superhuman. We believe that after taking a taxi down the mountain and climbing on a private jet to take him to England for his scan he will return to Germany where he will stay until the end of the World Cup.

Because we also believe that with him in the side, anything is possible. We believe he can lead us to the greatest sporting prize on earth.

And there are also things we try not to see. There are things we persuade ourselves we do not believe.

I tried not to see Rooney pull his injured right foot away sharply after he chipped a gentle pass to the England fitness coach yesterday. I tried not to see the grimace on his face.

I tried not to see him struggling towards the end of the session. I tried not to see the unevenness in his stride that started to look like a limp.

I tried not to see the look of impatience on Gary Neville's face when he pointed out that Rooney hadn't actually trained properly with the England squad yet.

I didn't want to believe Neville was just being as brutally honest as he always is when he said plenty of players do what Rooney's doing and that this is the easy part of the recovery.

I tried not to give in to the idea there might be crushing commercial pressures pushing Rooney towards a premature return that could ruin him.

I don't want to believe his presence here might have anything to do with endorsements he and his fiancee might lose if he misses out on the World Cup.

Or that the first book of his multi-book publishing deal might go down the pan if the doctors tell him not to bother catching that plane back to Germany tonight. I don't want to believe that Sir Alex Ferguson might be right and that we've locked this lad into a country's World Cup fantasies and insisted he simply ignore the fact he has a broken foot.

I don't want to believe that even if he does come back to tonight, he won't be fit to take part in the tournament until the quarter-final at the earliest.

And that by then, with only two strikers who have played in the Premiership available for our first four games, we might already have gone home.

What I want to believe instead is the theory that started doing the rounds as we watched our great hope going through his paces in a far corner of the pitch.

It goes like this: Wayne Rooney never broke his foot at Stamford Bridge at all.

The whole metatarsal thing has been a master plan to confuse the opposition.

He's been fighting fit all along and he's ready to be unleashed on an unsuspecting tournament.

Which is probably why somebody had strung up a massive poster on the side of a house by the road leading to the training ground.

"Welcome to Absurdistan," it said. Welcome to Wayne's World, a Truman Show where we all play our parts.

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I reckon he'll go and we might see him get on towards the end of the second round game against (hopefully) Poland. I can also see Owen getting injured, but I think that's just pessimism because he plays for us.

Did nobody else see that footage on the news of him pull his foot back after he'd struck the ball then?

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Nope

145953[/snapback]

Well it's out there, so all that means is you missed it, not that it didn't happen.

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Convenient excuse for the manager when England fail again, 'ah but if we had a fully fit Wayne'

In a bittersweet way as I don't like Eriksson, it's been amusing seeing the broadsheet writers absolutely rip to shreds all his bullshit over the last few years in their latest works, but makes you realise England's got no chance with him in charge.

Edited June 7, 2006 by Albert Kirkey

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Guest alex

Guest alex

Convenient excuse for the manager when England fail again, 'ah but if we had a fully fit Wayne'

In a bittersweet way as I don't like Eriksson, it's been amusing seeing the broadsheet writers absolutely rip to shreds all his bullshit over the last few years in their latest works, but makes you realise England's got no chance with him in charge.

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The Sunday Times pointed out that at the beginning of May he mentioned playing Joe Cole in the Rooney role. At the back end of the same month he mentioned playing Gerrard there. He was then asked about Joe Cole playing there and he claimed he had never considered it.

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When confronted by the fact he'd said for ages he was building up to this tournament since 2001 as the peak of his 'golden generation' how did it develop that a kid who was 15 and unheard of then, become so important he'd play him with one leg if he could

No answer from Sven, and while nobody's denying Rooney's injury isn't a bad thing, if we have as many world class players and he and loads of other people think, it wouldn't be that much of a blow.